the miracle dog

/

love. determination and the fight to save bean. poetry in progress

the quiet life

me and bean. cape cod. sept. 2012. 

 

his broad freckled chest now has a gnarly scar 

where he was stitched back together 

twice after the porcupine when

 

they cut his sternum bone in half 

again to remove the right front lung

lobe after they found

 

twenty-four quills in his heart

three in his lungs, forty

removed the first time

 

they performed open heart open 

lung surgery and he still 

didn’t heal nine days later

 

we brought him home in

critical condition after two 

nights of opioid torture in

 

the hospital parking lot we slept 

at a campground until he was stable

enough to make it home

 

where he could not be left

alone and his medication 

schedule was a short story

 

and his stitches became infected

the laundry constantly going to

rotate his t-shirt supply 

 

to keep him clean and his harness 

dry his sister constantly

by his side and

 

he healed as we 

fought against odds not in our favor to

keep him alive

 

after thousands of quills were 

pulled from his body they nicknamed

him the miracle dog

 

where we went for five weeks 

for check-ups and eventually it

was summertime

 

and he slept on the deck

sprawled on the couch his 

heart beating his lungs inflating

 

with salty air where he

swam and napped under 

the apple trees

 

where life re-formed

every breath no longer a fight 

but a reminder of

 

the value of the beat

the sigh and the light.

 

getdrunkbeardown

hugyourdog

 

may 12, 2017      recovery

navy

/

aka Kengali's Smooth Sailing. the new girl.

'big brother'

navy gravy . 'cause she pours it on'

unbelievably affectionate and loving, intense and brave. curious. funny and always hungry.

'cause she pours it on? yep. love love and more love. navy like gravy.

accompanied by a friend who works for Jet Blue, i flew from NYC to Boston to Orlando and back to NYC to bring her home. dec. 20-21. 2016. 7 weeks old.

a week later her first weekend trip. the poconos. the next week. montauk. 2 months later navy was a full time nova dog. 

after a few years of what felt like overwhelming personal loss. navy was a new light. a reminder to embrace our past present and future. to accept the now. the memory and with hope - the unwritten story. she reminds me of toulouse from time to time. she reminds bean . not all is lost. 

navy is named for my grandfather, a naval aviator and sailor whom I admired and adored. 

"make haste to be kind" -RH

getdrunkbeardown . hugyourdog . dothenovadance

navy and boris in nova

in search of

/

golden ferns. nova. van life. displacement. insomnia and the unknown.

in search of

we don't always find what we're looking for. we don't always know what it is. . . 

i finally left nyc. spring 2016. no set destination. just out of nyc really. everything we needed in nova. navy just 5 months and of course big bean.

we spent the summer in nova by the ocean in downeast maine. we're still up here. a little apartment above a work shop. 

do i miss the city? yes. do i miss my old life? absolutely. would i go back? i don't know where exactly, to go. or why i always want to go. 

not into commitments or small towns. i find myself in a tiny place reliant on my new job. some days i don't know how i ended up here. others it seems like the perfect place to get back on my feet. and then what? i find a place. a beautiful place with heart and soul and comes my innate desire to run away. i search to fill the empty corners. to find the comfort i had in the past. something about routine makes it feel unattainable. not enough unknown. so I want to move. again. and again. and again. maybe it's waiting around the next corner. the unfamiliar corner. because here. right here. in this little place with big hearts. i think i won't find it. 

get drunk. bear down.

and do the nova dance.

keep searching

Toulouse

/

she's going to live forever. i told myself. 5.8.2006 - 9.30.2015 a real live teddy bear

driftwood beach jekyl island feb. 2015 'shadows'

i never imagined my life without her.

the most loyal. selfless companion I have ever known. 

it began on a horse farm where I worked. like a shadow, she followed. everywhere. without a fuss. never in my way. toulouse? . . . of course. right here. 

i was accepted to college. we moved to our first apartment in nyc. 83rd st. west side. central park. my life unfolded, memories took shape. every day - the adventures of me and toulouse. ordinary enough. from time to time, unusual. when i wrote for school, she slept under my desk. when i wasn't studying, we did things together. all the time. central park was our yard. we wandered the streets - unleashed - metaphorically and physically. she never strayed. at a local watering hole, i joined the beer club. toulouse, the popcorn club. she established a profound love for salted kernals while i for hops. date night with touls. bodyguard. best friend. sidekick.

i went rollerblading. she came. running. she came. for a beer. she came. in a car. she came. to meet my boyfriend 35 blocks away. there she was by my side. she came almost everywhere.

“we” became we.

life became more unpredictable, we leaned on one another. move downtown. alphabet city. weekends upstate. horses to ride. family in maine. freedom in montauk. ongoing exploration. 

she turned five. i started grad school. murphy arrived - dancing machine. aka. bean. youth. . . yep. he kept her young.

 

assateague national seashore feb. 2015 (toulouse near. murphy distant) 'keepin' her young'

ask anyone who ever met her, toulouse was extraordinary. rare. intensely devoted. bullet proof - a real live teddy bear. anywhere. any situation. she adapted. toulouse was a workaholic. her job, me. protect. support. love. soulmate. many of her traits were innate. i didn't train her to be. she just was. magical. exceptional. she was my rock. i was certainly hers. as my best friend once said, 'you speak to her in full sentences . . . but she understands.' of course.

when i started thedrunkbear, toulouse was the heart of my inspiration. years of full time work. a masters degree. the hustle of NYC. enough. all i wanted was to travel in our new van, nova, write poetry, take photos - spend every day with my dogs. i once told my mom i was going to buy a motorcycle with a sidecar and toulouse and I were going to travel together all over the country. seriously. in some ways, nova is that dream. the motorcycle became a van and the two of us became four of us.

toulouse's death was devastating and unexpected. thankfully she did not suffer. murphy spent his days asleep. refused to leave our city block. i cried. a lot. struggled with my writing, inspiration and art. home. . a vast emptiness. murphy stopped his dance moves and she wasn't here to make me laugh (or keep me from stressing over nonsense). another dog? a new home? nova with three? insomnia and sadness.

i took a hiatus from this project after her death. when i sat to write i shed far more tears than words. discouraged. yes. afraid. sure. but how better to cope, to move forward, than to pursue the dream she so inspired. get drunk. bear down.                                                                                                                

to the end of an era. . .

maine coast may 8th 2015 - last birthday at the beach 'colorblind'

you were supposed to live forever

miss you. just you. cause there is no comparison.

come visit anytime. i dream a lot.

see you on the other side

xoxoxoxo

visit snapshots to see a few more. . .

grateful

/

for this capture. the set. the joy. the color. inside and out. 

best company. sun. sand. salt. sea. and these two. plus the guy behind the shot. 

to make the sunset over the water at the end of the peninsula we had to run. to make nova before the beach went black. we had to run. miles.

my camelbak left a hell of a bruise. bare feet busted up. hounds beyond exhaustion. worth it. totally. all four of us plunged into the bay at the lighthouse while the sun dropped behind the preserve. 

i don't remember this exact moment when i kneeled down, it was likely to offer water and i didn't realize he took the photo. thank you for the shot - life.

i always strive for some balance but this week i'm off. my old girl (left) is not 100% and i'm so far sideways. way off. i have always told her she must. must live forever. she knows and i know she'll certainly try. 

that's one tough dog

you never know. i'm not sure i really care to know.

and who knows what we really know. or if we just keep on trying to work it out.

          so for now. live everywhere anywhere and everybeat. hug extra. run for the sunset. and show them what they mean. cause who really knows if we'll ever work it all out - or if we really want to.

get drunk bear down . do the nova dance . and hug your dog .

happy birthday jonny

'cause it fits in a parking spot. where we live.

/

bean lounge. (un)leash your dog. sleep anywhere. everywhere and . . . in between.

now that's the way to do it. 

all four of you fit in there? 

i could never do it. 

where do you sleep?

that's nova. aka, noves. the girl. she's 18 ft.

bean just turned 4, lazy boy.

and yea, people ask these questions all the time. and yea, we make ourselves fit. we also made a lot of changes. microwave out, books in. tv down, cable cut.  2 motorcycles, truck, car. . . gone. donate old i-don't-know-what. . . done. house on market. . . check. NYC studio . . still got it. 

travel. learn. explore. study. bar. culture. music. food. surf. fish. . . 

life?

still living. still learning.

you live in that thing?

no. 

where do you live?

nowhere. . . well, everywhere. but we have a studio in NYC. so that's where we live if you have to peg us. we travel in nova. did we live in nova this spring for 3 months? we slept in there - we lived wherever we were. before work started up in nyc we had to fix up the house. but it had no furniture so we stayed in nova in the driveway for almost a month. but sometimes we would go to our home in the city for a few days. so where did we live? 

with our dogs

in the grass

on the street

by the beach

in the lot

at the marina

with a cold beer

and good company. 

up the trail

along the creek

on the slope

down the hill

toward the end

in that spot

in our home

across the bridge. 

it's not for everyone to live in a van for any amount of time. to live on the road. to camp. to travel constantly. each week or every few days. OR to live in a house with a picket fence. to mow a lawn. to live on an island. to live in nyc. to have the same neighbors for 40 years. to live east or west or up or down. we could go on. but how often do we hear: where do you live? and is it ever: what do you live in? where do you sleep? where is your home? who makes it home? why is it home? where did you grow up? i mean. aren't we all still growing up and living each day. year. experience? don't we live everywhere . . .  ? 

another question we get all the time is where would we go? after all the places you've seen, where would you move to? settle down for a bit, you know, after nyc gets old. . .

hah. to buy a boat. that's where. 

get drunk. bear down. and do the nova dance.

blues

/

shack up inn. harmonica camp. favorites. last juke alive. novalife. cotton fields.

this place was fullilove. 

clarksdale, missisippi. 

who knew. 

we didn’t go live in our van for fifteen weeks to prove anything. not to defy society. not for luxurious destinations. attention or to follow the tiny home trend. further, there are few roadtreks along the east coast. even fewer travelers with two large dogs in an eighteen foot van.

looking back. it wasn’t always the so-called van community that brought us close to people. it varied. in clarksdale it was music. culture. history. shared interest. and

harmonica camp. 

yes, that’s right. harmonica camp.

we went to the shack up inn on a recommendation. stayed in the biscuit shack for one night. it poured. the gunny shack for one night. it steamed. fullilove shack for two nights. sunshine. stayed in nova in the cotton field for two nights. rain (go figure). the electric blue shack for one night. (mostly at the juke joint, can't remember the weather.) but the person who was in electric blue met someone at camp and offered it to us for the last night. word up. you know who you are. 

y'all are like a sticky booger. the owner said. 
and proceeded to invite us to the gospel group on Sunday. he also joined us for dinner.
the clientele has changed, he told us, it used to be more like you guys, now I have to tell people not to throw beer cans off the front porch. it’s just different.  

lame.

our week in clarksdale deserves far more than a post here, maybe even a significantly longer work i need to flesh out in time. but. . .  more like us. . . ?

we were nicknamed legs for wearing shorts all the time (frequently with boots thanks to the mississippi mud). we sat on the front porch of a shack with some of the best harp players in the world. we drank whiskey out of plastic cups while I humbly absorbed my initial harp lesson. we took sunset walks through the still-working Hopson cotton plantation pinetop perkins and muddy waters used to farm. we stickered up our van and hung our hammock behind the shack. we supported the musicians. we know the history of robert johnson. i read salinger while jonny read napoleon. the dogs lounged carelessly as people mingled about. we are a couple from NYC traveling in nova to learn and experience. we live where we are. nowhere and everywhere. 

we met some of our favorites in clarksdale. fond memories of sweet company. dancing. blues. support. and soul.

we stumbled upon a like-minded group. whether more like us, or us more like them. brilliant. 

snapshots are in snapshots. 

getdrunkbeardownandplaythatharp

and

dothenovadance

and

hugyourdog

love and vengeance. power in association.

/

co-pilot. genius. security system. teacher. best friend. this hug.

genius. 

stubborn. persistent. sweetest.

loyal.

always. hungry. brilliant. 

loyal. 

determined. brilliant. companion

you broke the mold girl

can’ t imagine the last nine years without you

may eighth was this beauty's birthday. it all began with a plane ride. then a house. maine. an apartment. maine. a house. another apartment. maine. another house. road trip. montauk. murphy. road trip. road trip. who knows how many moves and miles. and finally. 

the past fifteen weeks in nova 

from maine down to key west back up the gulf into louisiana to find my heritage up the mississippi into memphis through tennesee the smoky mountains kentucky horse country class five rapids in west virginia and back on the east coast in annappolis maryland into nyc and upstate and yes. that's right. maine for her birthday. 

this photo was taken in myrtle beach. that's me under the wool hat. the camera jonny used was stolen in memphis when nova was broken into while we walked toulouse and murphy to the mississippi riverfront. 

you’re being watched. he said.

highest crime rate in the country.  she said.

the reality of it all was, in fact, dangerous. so we left. sad and disturbed though simultaneously grateful. maybe it’s a matter of perspective or reflection, but what it comes down to is that toulouse. bean. nova. jonny and I are all ok. still get my hugs. still have my art. 

i'm home in nyc for the moment. though technically. i’m not great at being in one place for more than a few days. i do crave my book collection and writing supplies. pencils preferred. also the company of my dogs. if there is no water nearby, not even a creek. i’m generally not at home in the philosophical sense of the interpretation. of course. we could go on and on about the meaning of home.

whether a snapshot reminds me of myrtle beach with toulouse or the violation of nova is up to me. the power of association. art is everywhere. 

i’m not sure what i know.          if anything at all.           but i’m learning. 

so here’s to many more stories. snapshots. poetry. memories and favorite company.

homeiswhereyourdogis

getdrunkbeardownanddothenovadance